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Hospital wants to pull the plug on inhumanely neglected 23-year-old woman who is not brain dead

Published

6 months ago

8 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Heidi Klessig, M.D.

Montefiore Hospital in Brooklyn is neglecting Amber Ebanks, but experts who have seen the student say her body is functioning and that she could improve with proper treatment.

Amber Ebanks, a 23-year-old Jamaican business student, drove herself to Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx for elective surgery on July 30. But her procedure went awry, leading to an intraoperative stroke and brain swelling that worsened over time. Now, her family is fighting for Amber’s life while the hospital wants to pull the plug.

In February, Amber was found to have a ruptured arteriovenous malformation (AVM), a tangle of abnormal arteries and veins in her brain. Thankfully, after the rupture she was able to return to life as normal. Her doctors recommended that she undergo an embolization procedure to clot off the abnormal blood vessels in her brain in hopes of preventing further rupturing and brain damage. Unfortunately, during the embolization procedure, one of the major arteries supplying blood to Amber’s brain was unintentionally occluded, and her procedure was also complicated by a type of bleeding around the brain called a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Thus, she was taken to the ICU, placed in a medically induced coma, and treated for brain swelling.

Just 10 days later, on August 9, her doctors declared her to be “brain dead.” But there were problems with this diagnosis. The Determination of Death statute in New York and the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) both state:

“An individual who has sustained either:

  1. irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions; or
  2. irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.”

Amber Ebanks meets neither the first nor the second of these criteria. Her circulatory and respiratory functions continue: her heart is still beating, and her lungs are absorbing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. And she does not have the irreversible cessation of all functions of her brain, since she is maintaining her own body temperature, which is a brain function.

Moreover, the new 2023 American Academy of Neurology brain death guideline indicates that metabolic derangements such as high serum sodium levels may confound a brain death evaluation. According to Dr. Paul Byrne, Amber’s sodium levels were very high prior to her brain death determination, with readings over 160meq/L (normal sodium levels range from 135-145 meq/L). Not only can high sodium levels cause abnormal brain functioning, but they can also cause blood vessels in the brain to rupture, causing more brain bleeding – the very problems that Amber’s doctors should be interested in preventing. Also, even though high levels of carbon dioxide are known to exacerbate brain swelling, her doctors have not been checking these levels or adjusting her ventilator settings to prevent such derangements.

In addition to her ongoing heart, lung, and brain functions, Amber has continuing liver and kidney function. And presumably she still has digestive function, even though the hospital has been refusing to feed her since she came in for her surgery on July 30th. A patient cannot be expected to improve neurologically without nutrition.

Not only is Montefiore Hospital refusing to feed Amber, it’s refusing to provide her with basic wound care and hygiene. When Dr. Byrne, a board-certified pediatrician and neonatologist and brain death expert, flew to New York to see Amber this past week, Amber’s sister Kay showed him a maggot she had removed from her sister’s hair. Referring to hospital personnel, Kay Ebanks said in an ABC News article, “They are some of the cruelest people I have ever known.” Most of Amber’s family lives in Jamaica, and her father has been struggling to get a visa in order to come and see his daughter. Meanwhile, the hospital actually suggested that family members say goodbye to her over the phone.

Dr. Byrne and Dr. Thomas M. Zabiega, a board-certified psychiatrist and neurologist, have both evaluated Amber’s case. They have submitted sworn affidavits that Amber Ebanks is alive, and believe that she has decreased blood flow to her brain causing a quietness of the brain known as Global Ischemic Penumbra (GIP). During GIP, the brain shuts down its function to save energy, but the brain tissue itself remains viable. Drs. Byrne and Zabiega recommend additional time and treatment such as adjusting Amber’s sodium and carbon dioxide levels and treating hormonal deficiencies. They have testified that with proper medical treatments she is likely to continue to live and may obtain limited to full recovery of brain functions, even possibly recovering consciousness.

Nevertheless, doctors at Montefiore Hospital are adamant that Amber is “brain dead” and want to disconnect her from her ventilator over the objections of her family. Despite the testimony of qualified doctors and experts, the judge assigned to her case is requiring that a New York-licensed physician be found to evaluate Amber and give testimony about her condition. Until then, Amber remains unfed, uncared for, and neglected in an American hospital, to the point of her sister having to remove vermin from her hair.

Amber Ebanks is very much alive despite receiving little to no ongoing treatment to assist with the healing of her brain. She does not meet the medical or legal criteria for death. All she needs are proper ventilator therapy, a balancing of her fluids and electrolytes, nutrition via a feeding tube, and hormonal replacement: treatments that are commonplace in medicine today. It is shameful that her family has had to beg for these treatments and even go to court to try to force the hospital to provide them.

Heidi Klessig, MD is a retired anesthesiologist and pain management specialist who writes and speaks on the ethics of organ harvesting and transplantation. She is the author of “The Brain Death Fallacy” and her work may be found at respectforhumanlife.com.

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Health

RFK Jr: There’s no medical justification for vaccinating one-day-old babies for Hepatitis B

Published on February 22, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

‘Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted from having sex with multiple partners in gay sex, or from sex workers, or intravenous drug use,’ explained the new HHS head. ‘Why would you give that to a baby?’

In a widely-viewed video shared on social media, the new U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asserted that the majority of vaccines — including those he sees as unjustifiably being mandated for infants — have been developed primarily to create profits for Big Pharma.    

“Most of the vaccines after 1989 were added not for public health reasons but for pharmaceutical profit reasons,” said Kennedy.    

“Why are we vaccinating one-day-old babies for Hepatitis B?” he asked. 

“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted from having sex with multiple partners in gay sex, or from sex workers, or intravenous drug use,” he said, reemphasizing, “Why would you give that to a baby?” 

According to Kennedy, Pharmaceutical giant Merck was directed by both the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to develop the Hepatitis B vaccine for “those vulnerable populations.”    

He explained that when those populations showed little interest in the vaccine, “Merck went back to the agencies and said ‘You told us to develop this vaccine, but nobody’s buying it.”  

“The CDC said, ‘Don’t worry’” recounted Kennedy, “we’ll just recommend it for children and we’ll force everybody to buy it.”     

“So, that’s how it got on the [childhood vaccine] schedule,” he said, declaring, “There’s no medical justification.”   

There’s no downstream liability, there’s no front-end safety testing – that saves them a quarter billion dollars – and there’s no marketing and advertising costs, because the federal government is ordering 78 million school kids to take that vaccine every year.  

What better product could you have? And so there was a gold rush to add all these new vaccines to the schedule that we don’t need. Most of these vaccines are unnecessary. Many of them are for diseases that are not even casually contagious.  

It was a gold rush, because if you get onto that schedule, it’s a billion dollars a year for your company.  

And in many cases, NIH is earning the royalties. 

According to Kennedy, more obscene than the huge profits being horded by Big Pharma are the vast number of negative side-effects from all those untested vaccines. 

“Neurological diseases” have “exploded,” he said. 

“ADHD, sleep disorders, language delays, ASD, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, ticks, narcolepsy. These are all things that I never heard of,” said Kennedy. “Autism went from one in 10,000 in my generation according to CDC data to one in every 34 kids today.” 

Kennedy is known for vehemently opposing vaccines without proper knowledge for those taking them, a stance he adopted after the mothers of vaccine-injured children implored him to look into the research linking thimerosal to neurological injuries, including autism. He went on to found Children’s Health Defense, an organization with the stated mission of “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” largely through vaccines. 

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Addictions

BC overhauls safer supply program in response to widespread pharmacy scam

Published on February 21, 2025

By

By Alexandra Keeler

A B.C. pharmacy scam investigation has led the provincial government to return to a witnessed consumption model for safer supply

More than 60 pharmacies across B.C. are alleged to have participated in a kickback scheme linked to safer supply drugs, according to a provincial report released Feb. 19.

On Feb. 5, the BC Conservatives leaked a report that showed the findings of an internal investigation by the B.C. Ministry of Health. That investigation showed dozens of pharmacies were filling prescriptions patients did not require in order to overbill the government. These safer supply drugs were then diverted onto the black market.

After the report was leaked, the province committed to ending take-home safer supply models, which allow users to take hydromorphone pills home in bottles. Instead, it will require drug users to consume prescribed opioids in a witnessed program, under the oversight of a medical professional.

Gregory Sword, whose 14-year-old daughter Kamilah died in August 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill that had been diverted from B.C.’s safer supply program, expressed outrage over the report’s findings.

“This is so frustrating to hear that [pharmacies] were making money off this program and causing more drugs [to flood] the street,” Sword told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.

The investigation found that pharmacies exploited B.C.’s Frequency of Dispensing policy to maximize billings. To take advantage of dispensing fees, pharmacies incentivized clients to fill prescriptions they did not require by offering them cash or rewards. Some of those clients then sold the drugs on the black market. Pharmacies earned up to $11,000 per patient a year.

“I’m positive that [the B.C. government has] known this for a long time and only made this decision when the public became aware and the scrutiny was high,” said Elenore Sturko, Conservative MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, who released the leaked report in a statement on Feb. 5.

“As much as I am really disappointed in how long it’s taken for this decision to be made, I am also happy that this has happened,” she said.

The health ministry said it is investigating the implicated pharmacies. Those that are confirmed to have been involved could have their licenses suspended, be referred to law enforcement or become ineligible to participate in PharmaCare, the provincial program that helps residents cover the costs of prescription drugs.

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Witnessed dosing

The leaked report says that “a significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are not being consumed by their intended recipients.” It also says “prescribed alternatives are trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally.”

Critics of the safer supply program say it enables addiction, while supporters say it reduces overdoses.

Sword, Kamilah’s father, is suing the provincial and federal governments, arguing B.C.’s safer supply program made it possible for youth such as his daughter to access drugs.

Madison, Kamilah’s best friend, also became addicted to opioids dispensed through safer supply programs. Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills dispensed through safer supply, but widely available on the streets. She developed a tolerance that led her to fentanyl.

“I do know for sure that some pharmacies and doctors were aware of the diversion,” Madison’s mother Beth told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.

“When I first realized what my daughter was taking and how she was getting it, I phoned the pharmacy and the doctor on the label of the pill bottle to inform them that the patient was selling their hydromorphone,” Beth said.

Masha Krupp, an Ottawa mother who has a son enrolled in a safer supply program, has said the safer supply program in her city is similarly flawed. Canadian Affairs previously reported on this program, which is run by Recovery Care’s Ottawa-based harm reduction clinics.

“I read about the B.C. pharmacy scheme and wasn’t surprised,” Krupp told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20. Krupp lost a daughter to methadone toxicity while she was in an addiction treatment program at Recovery Care.

“Three years [after starting safer supply], my son is still using fentanyl, crack cocaine and methadone, despite being with Dr. [Charles] Breau and with Recovery Care for over three years,” Krupp testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on Oct. 22, 2024.

Krupp has been vocal about the dangers of dispensing large quantities of opioids without proper oversight, arguing many patients sell their prescriptions to buy stronger street drugs.

“You can’t give addicts 28 pills and say, ‘Oh here you go,’” she said in her testimony. “They sell for three dollars a pop on the street.”

Krupp has also advocated for witnessed consumption of safer supply medications, arguing supervised dosing would prevent diversion and ensure proper oversight of pharmacies.

“I had talked about witnessed dosing for safe supply when I appeared before the parliamentary health committee last October,” she told Canadian Affairs this week.

“I’m grateful that finally … this decision has been made to return to a witness program,” said Sturko, the B.C. MLA.

In 2020, B.C. implemented a witnessed consumption model to ensure safer supply opioids were consumed as prescribed and to reduce diversion. In 2021, the province switched to take-home models. Its stated aim was to expand access, save lives and ease pressure on health-care facilities during the pandemic.

“You’re really fighting against a group of people … working within the bureaucracy of [the B.C. NDP] government … who have been making efforts to work towards the legalization of drugs and, in doing that, have looked only for opportunities to bolster their arguments for their position, instead of examining their approach in a balanced way,” said Sturko.

“These are foreseeable outcomes when you do not put proper safeguards in place and when you completely ignore all indications of negative impacts.”

Sword also believes some drug policies fail to prioritize the safety of vulnerable individuals.

“Greed is the ultimate evil in society and this just proves it,” he said. “We don’t care about these drugs getting into the wrong hands as long as I get my money.”

This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.

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